2005-12-22 - 8:06 a.m.
Wee rabid beastie
I saw a groundhog yesterday. It was not a happy thing. Groundhogs are hibernators - by the middle of November, it's starts to be unlikely that you'll see one, unless the weather has been unusually warm. They hibernate deeply, and only start appearing again in mid-Spring. This one was not hibernating; he was sitting in the middle of the road (local road, fortunately not too much traffic), staring up at a DHL truck, which had stopped, and the driver had his hazard lights on. I pulled over to see what I could do, and shooed the 'hog off the road (after it had wittered back and forward in front of a school bus). The delivery truck driver waved, and drove off. A closer look at the beastie showed a glazed expression, a slight sideways tilt of the head, and no fear of humans (groundhogs will usually motivate in the opposite direction of any humans as fast as they can waddle). Then it started walking around in a circle. Fuck. I'm pretty sure it had rabies - the neurological signs and the lack of fear are classic symptoms, and easier to spot than a foaming mouth (the foaming usually happens when confronted with water - the disease makes swallowing so painful it induces hydrophobia). Of course, this road is in a residential area, and not only are there lots of houses with kids who grew up on the Disney version of wildlife, there's a school bus stop about twenty yards away. I tried to shoo him into the brush, away from the houses. I tried to get him away from the road. I had the extrmely odd experience of backing up as this little creature staggered towards me (wild animals just do *not* do this!). He walked on my foot (booted), and I pushed him back with my toe. He just stopped for a second, leaned sideways, and started walking in circles again. I called 911, since I didn't know the number for animal control, and explained about the possibility of rabies, the residential area, and possible car accidents. He went into the church parking lot (I really had no safe way of restraining him), and I went into the church's adult day care center and asked the supervisor to call animal control, and warned her not to let any of the clients (who are special needs) try and pet the creature if they saw him. I left at this point, because it would probably be hours before animal control got there, and the poor sick beastie was far enough from the road that random children walking home would not see him. I took a risk by getting near the groundhog, but I really felt it was worth it to get it away from the road; while I was chivvying it off the road, a driver stopped, rolled down her window and tried to coax it to come near her (I stopped her). I figured this was what most people would do, and that it would really suck if someone got bitten. I blame Disney - wild animals that act tame are a *huge* warning signal to anyone who knows animals, but most suburbanites think it's just cute, and try to pet the animal, often with disastrous consequences. I've seen this phenomenon more than once, but the driver yesterday really scared me - I couldn't make a definitive diagnosis of rabies, but the symptoms were too close for comfort, even if it wasn't foaming at the mouth. Children raised to think of wild animals as cute and friendly and just like their pets don't understand the potential for injury, and worse, their parents don't seem to, either. Poor groundhog. This was *so* not the way I wanted to meet one close up. You can yell at me for taking a risk with a possible rabid animal, but I thought the risk was acceptable, and I'd do it again. Of course, this was pretty much a once in a lifetime weird happenstance, but I'd still deal with it the same way (though if I hadn't had perishable groceries in my car, I'd have stayed longer). For the record, groundhogs are just as squishy as they look, even when they're sick.
Dorsal - Ventral
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all words copyright Laura Mellin 2000-2005
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